


Collection the First: University Happenings

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [15]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Investigations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-26 04:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: The University has its own problems. The University has its own life.(A collection detailing the days of two Elsewhere U. students.)





	Collection the First: University Happenings

**Author's Note:**

> i,,,, have no excuse for the lateness of this chapter
> 
> but i liked writing it anyway! so there is that, at least.

It’s late October, near the peak of autumn. And that means Halloween.

Alice D. isn’t sure what to do on Halloween anymore. Her last Halloween was at- what? Age seven? Age eight? She only faintly remembers walking through a cool, white mall, a plastic jack-o-lantern in her hands and some barely passable costume on her too-big frame. The mall workers smiled when they gave her candy. That’s the best she can recall.

Now she’s eighteen, big and twice as out-of-place, and Elsewhere looms even bigger around her. The older students whisper about Halloween. She doesn’t know why. More worryingly, she hasn’t heard anything from Lyric-Weaver, and even standing just on the edge of the part of the forest that makes her sickest yields her nothing.

Of course, the best person to ask for help is a Fiddler.

Johnny looks better in the chaos of things, comfortable in the ruckus the other students are starting up. The creepy dissection room is different, somehow, different in the way that there are pressed, dried autumn leaves displayed on the wall along with the anatomical journals. It’s less creepy. More… other. She focuses on the leaves instead of the body parts and tries to ignore the way they make her just a little nauseous. As the students end their classes around her, pushing and nudging their way past the door, she waits.

“Hi,” she starts off when they’re the only ones still there, drawing the bio-med major’s attention away from the five-eyed frog he’s taking apart. Johnny looks up, eyes glinting brightly past the slightly blood-spattered spectacles he’s wearing. They still don’t have the beads her pair boasts. “Um, it’s me. Nice to see you again.”

“Alice D.! The student of the hour.” Johnny salutes cheerfully. The blood on his surgical gloves is shimmering unnaturally. “What do you need?”

“I, um…” D. clasps her hands closer behind her back, uncomfortably aware of how quiet the room is. It’s uncomfortable, in an unexplainable way. This whole place feels colder in the quiet. “I wanted to ask for some information. Is that alright?”

“’Course it is. It’s my job to offer information, after all.” There’s an easy smile on his face, one much less strained than the one that had been there in Michael’s room the last time she’d seen him. It helps with the discomfort. A lot. “You have anything to trade?”

“I have a book of recipes, if you’d like.” It’s handwritten, the kind of thing she’d kept since the start of the year. It’s everything she and Lento have ever made together. “It’s… important. To me, anyway.”

“What? No, I don’t want that. What am I, one of your Good Neighbours?” Johnny makes a face. D.’s surprise must show clearly in her expression, because he follows that with a laugh. “You could probably just read the recipes aloud to me, if we agree it’s fair. I don’t take physical objects often. It’s usually better to save the really important stuff for big Deals, not little things. Not human deals.” And despite everything, it’s easy for D. to tell that the second Fiddler is still human.

“I appreciate it.” The statement feels incomplete without a thank you. She leaves it at that anyway. “I’m not entirely sure if you’ll have this information, though. Is that alright?”

“Go off, A.D.; it’s not like I’ll care. Besides, my brother’ll snap my neck if I don’t listen to your question anyway.” The teasing slant to Johnny’s smirk has to be her imagination. The equally teasing lilt to his voice, however, is all him. “Is it an _Other_ problem or a student problem?”

“It’s an Other problem, sort of.” D. fiddles with her fingers, glancing past the rim of her tinted glasses. She has so many worries. So many questions. But she doesn’t want to ask more than one. “I, uh…”

Smaller problem first. Then bigger problem, at a different time, when you’ve built up a rapport and they’ve grown more attached. That’s the way the world goes. That’s the way to ease someone into helping.

“Why is everyone so excited about Halloween? Is it an Elsewhere thing?”

Alice D. expected a lot of things. She didn’t, however, expect Johnny to start laughing.

“Halloween?” he finally gets out, between little fits of slightly insulting giggles. “Come on, A.D., you can’t be serious. It’s basically just magic Halloween. You know, when magic is more easily found in the human world and stuff. Nothing too bad. Sure, you can occasionally get turned into your costume and forget who you were, but that’s an extreme case. Usually, you just end up with traits of the costume’s character. I go as a great detective every year.”

“Oh. That explains why you’re so smart!”

The other voice is unexpected. Both D. and Johnny whirl around, startled. There’s a boy at the door, familiar and smiling, with pale blond curls and a cream button-up peeking out from under his sweater. D. doesn’t know why, but at the sight of him, Johnny lights up.

“Litwick! Shit, was I really that late? I didn’t miss dinner, did I?”

“No, nothing like that. I was just checking on you. You tend to lose track of time during dissections.” Litwick P. of psychology laughs, the sound like a bell in the once silent room. There’s something about him that makes everything seem just a little bit warmer. Something _else_. Still, it’s temptingly comfortable. D. can’t deny that. “Maybe I should find a better costume this year than a scientist.”

“Ah, but you look so good in a lab coat,” Johnny teases. “Litwick, this is Alice Dorothy. Cat Eyes’s Lost One. She’s taking psych, too! I thought you’d like another nerd.”

Litwick laughs, stepping closer cheerfully. “You know what? I probably would. You know me too well, sweetheart.” He reaches forward, tugging Johnny closer, and-

And delicately pulls him in for a kiss.

Oh.

D. turns away quickly, trying to ignore the bright flush that must be on her face. She’s seen kissing before. Maybe. Every few months, outside of school, when her parents aren’t sniping insults at each other or on holidays when they greet each other. It’s never been as… affectionate. It’s never felt as intimate.

She is ungodly, unfathomably embarrassed.

“Something wrong, Lost One?” Johnny teases, turning back to her with a friendly, teasing grin. “You want one, too?”

The flush must be embarrassingly obvious. She tries her best to reply, tries her best to hide the bright, flashing want for affection and contact like that. “I- I don’t- You don’t have to-“

Johnny laughs- infinitely better than the mocking she’d expected- and he pulls her into their little space, not a single shred of familiar disgust in the action. D. tries to pretend she doesn’t instinctively lean into his warmth. “You mind, Litwick?”

The older psych major presses an indulgent, unhesitating kiss to the top of her head. These two are far too comfortable in their actions. D. feels like melting. It’s more affection than she’s had in so long.

She likes Elsewhere. Far too much.

“You owe me a recipe,” Johnny reminds her, tapping her worn backpack with a single finger. “Just read it aloud to me sometime, okay? Don’t forget.”

With the blood-red string strung between their hands, Alice D. doubts she’ll forget, either. Still, it’s… better. A more comfortable deal than she’s started to expect.

“I’ll remember,” she swears.

Halloween is a time where students can become more and more what they pretend to be. She’ll have to keep that in mind. Maybe she can play at being someone she actually wants to be. Someone that isn’t this withdrawn her.

She’ll do her best.

⋈

Connor’s taken to planning arson against the forest.

They’re angry, still. Unquestionably angry. They make those plans they’ll never actually carry out because they don’t have Lyric-Weaver to burn. They don’t want Lyric-Weaver _dead_ , not really but- but-

They remember the listless, numb sort of shock on D.’s face when ne came back from nir old dorm that night. They remember the sluggishly bleeding wounds, and the bright pop of green leaves inside them. Every time they remember it, they want to hurt Lyric-Weaver even more.

But they saw the way their face fell every time they glared at them, back in the kitchen where they’d all been making food to offer in a fairy deal. They saw how their friend- were they even still friends? - froze in their furious gaze, how they’d been quieter and more accommodating and more hesitant. More scared. They didn’t look like they’d meant it. They didn’t look like they wanted a single part of this fight.

Lyric-Weaver had looked like they only wanted to make things better. Connor wishes desperately that they could believe that.

_“I don’t want to hate you.”_

Fuck Lyric-Weaver. Fuck D. Fuck this whole uncomfortable, hateful mess. They wish it could have never happened.

But it happened. And they can’t fix it.

So they plan arson.

More than that, they start investigating fairy weaknesses. Fire isn’t quite as much a weakness as salt or as iron or as daisies and debts, but it burns just about anyone badly enough if you turn it up as hot as it can get. They follow the rules of hospitality like you follow the rules of traffic during rush hour, and the punishment for breaking a single rule is a million times worse than a disastrous crash. They cannot cross running water, held back by leaking sprinklers and the little paths worn by rain. They lurk in the crossroads and the gardens and the wide, too-tall forest trees that lock Elsewhere University on its little fairy hill. And they love fiercely, and they hate fiercely, and they do not forget.

There are groups against fairies here at Elsewhere. They watch out for changelings and less than human students and those who the fae hold close and hold dear. They spread weaknesses and spread warnings. Connor draws their information from them. The Knights, the chemistry students, the robotics majors who’ve made little iron robots to guard their doors and their windows. They don’t know why they collect this information. But they do.

They’re lying when they say that, just a little. They collect it because they are angry. And their anger burns like molten iron inside them.

The Knights offered them a place in their group, on the third day they’d asked for another weakness. They said they’d think about it.

They wish they weren’t still mad. They wish there was no reason to be. But they remember the marks of thorns around a neck and remember the betrayal and shock they’d felt and they hate, hate, _hate_.

So Connor draws a line of graphite around their sketch of the forest and plans.

They could pile flammable things round the edges of the woods, if they tried. Sassafras and dried leaves and old cloth and scratch paper. They could soak the whole thing in gasoline and fire away. They could do so, so much.

There’s the sound of their dorm room opening. D.’s back, then, from nir trip to one of the Fiddlers. It’s always a Fiddler, with nem. Connor doesn’t look up from their sketch. They don’t want to talk right now.

“You’re still trying to burn down the forest?” D. doesn’t sound condescending. Just worried. Ne stopped sounding condescending around the third time ne’d caught them drawing out arson plans. “Connor, come on, that- that’s going to destroy so many animals’ habitats, and it’s going to anger so many Neighbours, and-“

“God, D., what made you think I cared?” Connor is intensely aware that they sound like someone’s disaffected niece. “It’s not like I can do it, anyway. You know I can’t.”

“I know, but…” D. presumably flinches, nir pause only hammering home nir disappointment further. “I’m worried, Connor. Are you alright?”

“Are _you_ alright?” Connor shoots back. It’s a petty move. They don’t care. “You’re always worrying about me.”

“I think I’d be a little less worried if… if you didn’t plan to burn down forests. Just a little.”

“It’s not my fault you worry about me,” Connor retorts, which… okay, that’s a little too petty, even for them. They backtrack quickly. “I mean… I’m not going to do it. You know that.”

“There’s a logical progression between openly planning to burn down a forest with illustrated plans and actually burning down a forest, Connor.” Nir tone is back to condescending. Just a little. But Connor can hear the hesitance in it, the familiar creeping doubt, and as usual it’s enough to make them consider agreeing, if only to reassure nem. “I just… never mind. I understand that it’s a coping mechanism. I’m just… worried.”

“As usual,” they reply, vitriol dripping from every word of their tone. “I can burn the drawings when they’re done, if you like.”

“That’s furthering the logical progression. Maybe leave them to soak in a water basin overnight instead. Something opposite.” D. shifts. “It’ll help you calm down, at least.”

“Maybe.”

“Connor, plea- _come on_. This… this isn’t healthy.”

“And you’d know that, wouldn’t you? You’d care? You, with your studying and your not-hating-people-thing and- and- God, D., can’t you get angry?! Can’t you understand other people when they are?!” Connor’s this close to yelling. This close to snapping. “Damn it, D., just let me be angry in peace!”

It’s quiet. Too quiet.

“I can’t,” D. says, which is… new. Usually, when Connor starts yelling, ne sneaks off. Ne sulks. Ne curls up facing the wall on their bed and pretends ne’s not crying. “There’s a point when things become too much. This is that point, Connor.”

“Who the hell are you to decide that? I haven’t gone too far!”

“You will if you keep doing this. You will if you keep hating and hating and-”

“You’re being an asshole!”

“I’m just trying to tell the truth!”

“And _I’m_ just drawing! It’s nothing else!” It’s something else. It’s _everything_ else, all piling up like weights on their shoulders. But Connor can’t make themself _say_ that. “D.-”

“This is you keeping an anger that’s festered for too long.” D.’s voice is shaking. Unsteady. Does ne always fight like this? “You’re holding this too close to you, Connor. I can’t- I can’t just-”

“What, you can’t just let me be angry at someone who tried to _kill you_?!”

“I can’t let you try to destroy yourself or others with that anger!” D. snaps.

Connor doesn’t have a response to that.

“Will you let me _talk_?” ne asks. “Good,” ne continues when they don’t respond automatically. “You’re planning an actual arson- an actual _crime_ as some sort of twisted revenge against someone who was acting on instinct, who didn’t continue to try hurting me, and who _I have forgiven_. Do I still sometimes have nightmares about it? Yes. Do I cry when I think about it for too long? Yes. Do I want you to hurt Lyric-Weaver for it? Do I want you to _hate_ Lyric-Weaver for it? Do I think it is in any way going to help if you plan to _burn down a forest_ for it?”

Slowly, hesitantly, Connor answers. “No.”

“Do _you_ want to hate Lyric-Weaver for it?”

That’s a harder question. They want…

They want to hate Lyric-Weaver.

They don’t want to hate Lyric-Weaver.

They want…

“I just want things to go back to how they were. To be better, maybe.” Connor sighs, their gaze falling back to their paper. The plans seem… empty, now. Not quite as hateful. Not quite as meaningful. “… I don’t want that either.”

D. smiles, nir determination and their forced daring draining slowly from nir form. “Good. That’s good. I… I hoped you wouldn’t want to hate them.”

… They hope that, too.

D. nods, satisfied, before heading off into the bathroom to shower before bed. Ne looks better today. Happier. Connor hopes it keeps up.

They pause, staring at the pad of lined paper they’ve sketched burning plans on. Maybe they really could try what their roommate suggests, for once.

They flip the paper over, scribbling down the weaknesses they know line by line. Maybe they don’t need to do this. Maybe they don’t need to keep this pointless hate. Fire, salt, iron, daisies and debts. Running water and thresholds. They write everything they’ve learned down. Every last thing.

When D. is done, they’ll soak it overnight. They’ll let the paper break apart in the water.

It’s the best thing for them to do.


End file.
